Ferocious partisanship has its uses. If nothing else, a divided nation can console itself that no government idea goes unexamined and unopposed. Scrutiny can be all the more exacting for being born of tribal malice rather than Socratic truth-seeking. The US is riven — it has managed to politicise the workaday face-mask — but it avoids the equal and opposite danger of unreflective consensus.  

Except, that is, on the most momentous policy of the century. To be in Washington is to sense a nation sliding into open-ended conflict against China with eerily little debate. Politicians who can be counted on to dispute the colour of the sky or the sum of two plus two are of a piece on the necessity of a superpower duel. In the Rambo trailers that pass for his campaign ads, Joe Biden only faults President Donald Trump’s China line for its softness.

Nor is the Democratic candidate for the White House a rare belligerent in his party. Chuck Schumer, who leads it in the Senate, has urged the president to “hang tough” on tariffs for “strength is the only way to win with China”. He was not pressed to say what in the historic record justifies this coffee-mug banality, or against which nation he would ever counsel weakness. No, that would require debate. Neither in Washington nor in the corporate sector is there much to be found, at least on the record. Academics have been more forthcoming with their qualms, but not in great number or to great effect.